Many light fixtures are fabricated out of extruded or injection-molded components including housings and lenses. By manufacturing light fixtures from extruded and/or injection-molded components, manufacturers are able to offer the consumer attractive light fixtures at relatively low cost.
As extruded and injection-molded light fixtures have been received with increasing acceptance by consumers, consumers have also demanded a wider variety of styles. However, offering a wider variety of styles negatively impacts the economies of scale for the manufacturers. Specifically, in the past, manufacturers have been required to build new dies or new molds for each housing shape, size and style and for each lens shape, size and style.
Therefore, manufacturers are presented with a dilemma In order to satisfy consumer demand for a wide variety of styles, manufacturers are pressured to expand their product line to include the wide variety of styles desired by the consumer. However, in order to keep material costs down, manufacturers must find a way to expand their product lines without the necessity of designing and building new tooling for each new style or, at least, manufacturers must find a way to limit the tooling needs for each new style or design.
Further, in addition to the high cost, the need to design and build new dies and molds takes time and therefore the introduction of a new design a style is often delayed while a new die or mold is being designed and built. Hence, a large part of the time it takes to bring a new design into the market place is consumed by the design and construction of new dies and/or molds. Therefore, one way to shorten the time it takes to introduce a new design or style would be to limit the need to build new dies or molds for each new design or style.
Accordingly, in the low end consumer products lighting market, there is a need for a way to expand product lines to include new designs and styles while, at the same time, limiting the tooling needs for the new designs and styles.